[IMC-Editorial] DEMO: AGAINST FASCIST SPAIN 16-11-02

[Euskalinfo (Basque information)]

Demo: Against Fascist Spain
Saturday 16th Nov 2002, 
against Fascist Spain  
demo outside the Spanish 
Embassy in London
(39 Chesham Place, London SW1X 8SB)

Once again we’re coming up to another 20 
November, the day the Spanish dictator Franco 
died. This is the day Spanish fascists especially 
remember, as it’s also the day they chose to kill 
Basques Santi Brouard and Josu Muguruza MP. 
This year, the Partido Popular (PP), the party in 
government and Franco’s descendants, have 
escalated their repression to reach Franco’s levels. 
That’s why feel we need to act to express our 
disgust - they will certainly be having their own 
events in Madrid and other places.


We’ve been hearing how fascist some of the parties and 
governments in Europe are. The left has reacted against the rise of 
LePen and against the fascist Austria of Joerg Haider. But what 
about those fascists governing Spain? President Aznar’s PP is the 
continuation of Franco’s project, and six years after they came to 
power on, they’re definitely fulfilling the expectations. Last 18th 
October Aznar’s government backed and marched in a demo 
against ‘Basque nationalism’ and on behalf of the Spanish 
nationalism. This is how politicians and the media had used their 
anti-terrorism rhetoric to impose their españolismo. The day after 
falangists (Franco’s party) went to Basque Country to march in 
Bilbo for the indivisibility of Spain and for a fascist state.  The 
fascists were allowed to march while Basques can’t even protest 
this raise of fascism. And they even enjoyed police protection! 

The Basque  magazine Kalegorria exposed in its August issue the 
plans to create a new paramilitary group joining police 
intelligence and Falange’s activity. The GAL was the previous 
paramilitary state project and was responsible for the death of more 
than thirty people in the eighties. Some of the people involved were 
imprisoned and some of them are still in court.

Spain has join the Western powers to rule the world (ie, Spanish 
multinationals) and Aznar is always amongst the first to offer 
unconditional support to George Bush Junior. And he’s 
‘unconditional’ because since the ‘war on terrorism’ was 
declared by the Yankee clown after September 11, Aznar saw the 
ideal opportunity to join up to increase repression on his own soil. 
This repression was aimed at ETA and anything to do with Basque 
separatism, and recently Aznar passed a law to ban parties 
(Parties Law) which effectively shut down the long-persecuted 
Batasuna. This takes the whole situation back to the times of the 
dictator (there is not just one party, but you can question the 
current state when the only alternative are either PP or PSOE and 
both are the same). And what about the media monopoly and 
manipulation? We have to remember that since PP was in power 
the repression has been endless, with an active ‘18-98 process’ 
which has closed many organisations and imprisoned a lot of 
people. This is Judge Garzón’s baby. 

PP also launched a war against other groups, which the 
government didn’t consider such a threat before -perhaps a 
confirmation of the success groups like the Anarchist Black Cross 
(ABC) and the squatters movement were achieving. Anarchists in 
the Spanish state got beaten-up, framed-up, locked-up as they had 
never been before. The same tactics used for so long in the 
Basque Country were now used against all these groups. In the 
summer of 2002 a huge operation resulted in the detention of 
GRAPO (armed communist group) members inside the Spanish 
and the French border. This was the result of an infiltration first in 
the ABC and afterwards in this group. 

The Parties Law has continued the marginalisation and 
persecution in the Basque Country, and ignores all protest at rise 
of repression. Offices are evicted (even those ones of the TAT – 
Anti-Torture Groups), demos are banned and when they happen are 
attacked. Even the right to disagree with these fascist laws are 
forbidden – that’s fascism! The repression against the massive 14 
September demo in Bilbo was brutal; this was an authorised demo 
that the ertzantza (Basque police) decided to mash. People got 
together in the front, linking arms, and some even got naked to 
demonstrate they had no weapons and no intentions of using force 
(they declared themselves ‘no-nationalists’). Two of them got 
beaten with batons in the face and testicles and dragged to the 
floor. They were detained, had they had the ‘anti-terrorist’ law 
applied to them, and as a result they spent three weeks in prison! 
Three people who the police decided were the organisers were 
imprisoned. The new Spanish democracy


But that’s nothing: since that demo 44 people have been detained 
for an average of five days each and there have been 55 raids. All 
those arrested on the raids were released again – something that 
happens constantly in the Basque Country: random mass arrests 
to cause terror to the population. From these people, 33 have 
reported torture - including rape - when taking to Madrid for 
questioning. All of this has, as usual, been ignored by the judges 
and forensic doctors who examined them.

To all this add the repression that people suffer outside the 
Spanish borders. This is something that Aznar is stressing as well, 
in order to get more support from other governments. Catalonian 
Laura Riera did a year in prison (Madrid) after being framed, linking 
her to ETA. She has had no trial. Juanra Rodríguez was arrested in 
January in Holland in the same circumstances – he is still waiting 
for a trial. Gabrielle Kanze was also arrested in June in Germany; 
she is the partner of a Catalonian who was also victim of a frame-
up. 

If the situation on the streets is like that, you can imagine how bad 
it is in prison. The Spanish state imprisons many political prisoners 
(about 600 Basque ones). The FIES or isolation or control unit is 
the most brutal systems a prisoner can suffer, and any so-called 
political and common prisoners are locked in there for days, 
weeks, months. Dispersion is the other extra punishment applied 
to prisoners, specially to those political ones.

Meanwhile the whole country went on strike on 20 June – isn’t that 
a fair indication of how bad the situation is? But the PP government 
is side by side with the big multinationals: while ATT (temping 
agencies) are muscling in on the labour market and ‘junk’ contracts 
are replacing workers rights, the PP government passed what is 
known as the ‘decretazo’. This new law gives employers more 
rights to sack workers and deprives the unemployed from getting 
any benefits. This is terrorism against the working class! Once 
again the ones who’ll suffer will be those who already fuck all: 
women, part-timers like the Andalucian ‘jornaleros’, and the 
situation of the already enslaved immigrants will get worse. 

Meanwhile Spain continues to act as a barrier to stop people who 
want to get into this ever-more rotten Europe to find some 
alternatives to the poverty they face in their countries of origin. 
Hundreds die on its coasts in the attempt. Spain continues its 
colonisation of Latin America, controlling banks and running 
destructive mega-projects. In these times of murdering capitalism 
(globalisation, neoliberalism
) Spanish firms step firmly: Repsol 
YPF, Gas Natural and Cepsa (gas and oil extraction), Telefónica, 
Endesa and Fenosa (the first involved in the Bio-Bio dams in Chile 
and the second one in the Urrá one in Colombia), and banks like 
BBVA and BSCH involved in Argentina’s fraud, water companies 
like Aguas Barcelona. 

Because of all this we have the obligation of opposing this fascist 
government.

¡Vosotros Fascistas sois los terroristas!
Zuek faxistak zarete terroristas!
You fascists are the terrorists!